Has anyone seen the comercials for the tomato tree? It's not really a tree but appears to be a climbing vine. The picture shows it supported by a trellis, standing 6 foot high, or more. Acording to the hype, it's supposed to produce bushels of large, grapefruit sized tomatoes with great flavor.

Does anyone have any experience with this tomato plant? I sure would purchase it if I knew that the plant produced as advertized. What a space saver.

I used to have customers come in the greenhouse asking for that "tree tomato".
Having never tried it, I can't say it isn't something special, but...any indeterminate tomato plant can be trained to a trellis, and if you pinch out the suckers as it grows, the tomatoes will be larger. A beefsteak tomato could easily give you fruits as large as a grapefruit.

*note: An indeterminate tomato is one that keeps on growing all summer.
Suckers are the little branches that sprout out between the stem and a main branch.

I've seen the commercial GW...It has alot of visual appeal...In reality, I am skeptical of their claims....Bushels of tomatoes?...Then they say up to 60 pounds from one plant (A US bushel of tomatoes is 53 lbs I think) So maybe 1 bushel under optimum growing conditions would be impressive up against an avergae of 20 to 40 + or - pounds for the average plant. Like Miss Connie said any indeterminate plant can be put on a trellis...6' tall towards the end of the growing season would not be unusal....

EDit....Grrrrrr! I can't spell

__________________There is only one Quality worse than Hardness of Heart, and that is Softness of Head.

there's determinate, or a plant that grows to a fairly specific size or number of branches while fruiting then dies, and the indeterminate tomatoes, or plants that continue to grow and fruit throughtout a season.

most people just train their tomatoes upwards to make harvesting easier, and to save space, but all tomatoes will grow as vines or short, hanging bushes along the ground if left alone

i haven't seen the "tree tomato" around yet, gw. but i'm guessing it's just a hybrid indeterminate that grows a thick stem. (therefore requiring a lot more nitrogen). if it says vfn resistant, it's a hybrid and not an heirloom. not that one is better over the other, so long as the tomatoes taste good. hth.

there's determinate, or a plant that grows to a fairly specific size or number of branches while fruiting then dies, and the indeterminate tomatoes, or plants that continue to grow and fruit throughtout a season.

most people just train their tomatoes upwards to make harvesting easier, and to save space, but all tomatoes will grow as vines or short, hanging bushes along the ground if left alone

i haven't seen the "tree tomato" around yet, gw. but i'm guessing it's just a hybrid indeterminate that grows a thick stem. (therefore requiring a lot more nitrogen). if it says vfn resistant, it's a hybrid and not an heirloom. not that one is better over the other, so long as the tomatoes taste good. hth.

DW has tons of cages for stuff like this, but never got them out last year and the tomato plants ran all over the place. This year we have a better planned out veggie garden so I will be training them up, can't afford to let them crawl all over the place as I need the room for other things especially the peppers!
I remember growing up we planted them in a coffee container with the top and bottom removed, then put the cage over that. When it came to watering, we just filled the can and left it be. We always got plants at least 4' tall (starting to go over the tops of the cages) and lots of tomatoes. Thinking of doing that as well, as DW does have some of the taller cages to use.
We also have a sunny spot along the garage where I could put a trellis up and try this out. We can always give the extras away at the church.